Benson tells the A.V. Club folks that his interest in the song was first piqued when he heard it in a club in England. Some helpful clubgoers helped him suss out the responsible band.

"It was during Christmastime and they blasted it, and everyone's singing along to it," he said, agreeing with his interviewer that the tune is something of a "Christmas anthem" across the pond.

Now that he's back home, Benson is getting ready to hit the studio to record a new solo album, which'll follow up 2009's My Old, Familiar Friend. In the meantime, take a listen to his holiday offering above, and check back for more locally generated holiday sounds.

Well-loved Web destination Daytrotter.com came out to Nashville earlier this year to record a session with Music City rock talent Brendan Benson at his home.

Benson -- who's out now on a co-headlining tour with The Posies -- recorded a trio of songs from his 2009 release My Old, Familiar Friend ("Garbage Day," "Gonowhere" and "You Make a Fool Out of Me") and "Jet Lag" from 2002's Lapalco. He's joined on the Daytrotter session by fellow Nashvillian Andrew Higley, who also performs live with Ben Folds and The Greenhornes, among others.

On his current tour, the Nashville power-popper is being backed by Posies founding members Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer, who also serve in R.E.M. and Big Star. Benson’s co-headlining the shows with — who would have guessed? — The Posies. The alternative pop vets released their first album in five years, Blood/Candy, in September.

The tour brings Benson back to Nashville on Friday, Nov. 19 for a show at Exit/In (2208 Elliston Place, 321-3340). It stars at 7 p.m., and tickets are $20.

Sometime in 2005, after releasing a string of albums and an EP on a near-annual basis, the men of Cincinnati garage-rock group The Greenhornes hit a wall.

“We wanted to take a second for a break,” says drummer Patrick Keeler, “and it just ended up being a lot longer than we thought.”

The break has finally ended with Four Stars (stylized as ★ ★ ★ ★), the band’s first new album in eight years.

In that time, Keeler and bassist Jack Lawrence moved to Nashville, where they’ve enjoyed success with many of Jack White’s musical projects, including Loretta Lynn’s Grammy-winning album Van Lear Rose, and as members of The Raconteurs. Lawrence also is in The Dead Weather with White, who plays a role in Four Stars’ release — it’s being issued on White’s Nashville-based label, Third Man Records.

The band recorded the album in Nashville and Cincinnati, where frontman Craig Fox still lives.

“It was nice to be in a familiar place in the studio and to be back in the band that we all started over a decade ago,” Keeler says, chuckling in disbelief. But during the band’s lengthy downtime, their status as under-sung garage greats endured.

“People asked about The Greenhornes all the time,” Fox says. “Every time I’d go to another city, somebody would ask me about it.”Continue reading →

The Greenhornes play Grimey's on Nov. 9 (photo: John Partipilo/The Tennessean).

Garage-rockers the Greenhornes — featuring Nashvillians and Raconteurs Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler — have returned with their first new album since 2002.

What’s this album called, you ask? Picture four stars in a row. That’s the title. In conversation, guesses are it’ll be referred to as "Four Stars." Or maybe “The Google-proof album.” Or “Chik-Chik-Chik-Chik.”

Anyway, the band will be pushing "Four Stars" — a seriously cool, Kinks-y effort — with an in-store performance at Grimey’s New and Preloved Music (1604 Eighth Ave. S., 254-4801) on Tuesday, Nov. 9.

What's this album called, you ask? ★★★★. Yep, four stars in a row. In conversation, guesses are it'll be referred to as "Four Stars." Or maybe "The Google-proof album." Or "Chik-Chik-Chik-Chik." We'll have to see how it plays out.

Anyway, "Four Stars" will be released on November 9 via Nashville label Third Man Records (owned by Lawrence and Keeler's frequent collaborator, Jack White). In snazzy Third Man style, the album will be pressed on four different colors of vinyl. No word on tour dates yet -- we'll have to cross our fingers for a throwdown of some sort at Third Man's Nashville outpost.

Jackson's The Party Ain't Over album, produced by White, is due out on January 25 of next year, via White's Nashville-based Third Man Records and Nonesuch Records.

This LP will follow up the vinyl Third Man single from Jackson that Third Man issued earlier this year. The Party sessions went down here in Nashville at White's studio, with a team of high-profile players and friends adding sounds, including White's Raconteurs pals Patrick Keeler and Jack Lawrence, My Morning Jacket guitarist/solo artist Carl Broemel, country singer Ashley Monroe and singer-songwriter/White spouse Karen Elson.

News of the release comes around what'll surely be a fun day for Jackson: She'll receive a lifetime achievement award -- presented by White -- at tonight's Americana Honors & Awards event at the Ryman. The Americana Music Association’s Honors & Awards will also include appearances from Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris, The Avett Brothers, Rodney Crowell, Rosanne Cash, Patty Griffin, John Mellencamp and others. It kicks off at 6:30 p.m., and tickets are $55.

In case you couldn't cram into the Basement for Brendan Benson's sold-out show there in July, we've got good news: The Nashville power-popper will be playing a larger local venue -- Exit/In -- on November 19.

It'll still be a pretty hot ticket: The show's part of a co-headlining tour with alt-pop vets the Posies.

Hometown heroes the Dead Weather will be taking a bit of a breather while its members tend to other projects, but bassist Jack Lawrence tells Billboard.com that you'd be wrong to think the break is anything near permanent.

"We all go back to our other projects after this tour, but there's no doubt in my mind we'll be doing more stuff," Lawrence said.

Those other projects: Lawrence is re-teaming with his longtime band the Greenhornes, alongside his rhythm section partner in the Raconteurs, Patrick Keeler; Dead Weather singer Alison Mosshart will get to work on new music from her band the Kills; and guitarist Dean Fertita heads back to rock stalwarts Queens of the Stone Age right as the Dead Weather tour wraps in August. As for the band's famed drummer/singer, Third Man Records kingpin Jack White -- he's expected to keep busy with the label, but rumors are bubbling up that he might be putting focus back on the band that launched his storied career, blues-rock two-piece the White Stripes. Nothing official has been announced there.

Regardless of the busy schedules, Lawrence told Billboard that the Dead Weather is certainly not a side project, and that he expects the band to rev back up by the end of the year.

"Everything is pretty smooth operating," he said. "We haven't planned on anything. It just all comes together. We don't sit around and discuss it or talk about the next move we need to make. All of it just happens, which is refreshing. It's the way you always want bands to work."

The Dead Weather's current touring run comes in support of their second LP, Sea of Cowards, released in May. The band's travels brought them back home to Middle Tennessee this summer for a set at the Bonnaroo festival -- check out our Dead Weather Bonnaroo review.